Latest MS Antivirus Stories

Microsoft and Washington State's Attorney General filed lawsuits in an attempt to protect frightened customers from buying useless software from scam artists.Such scam artists use what is called "Scareware" to trick computer users into clicking on pop-up alerts that claim their device is "damaged and corrupted".They are then persuaded to buy software that corrects the non-existent issue by offering fake security fixes.Attorney General Rob McKenna called it a blatant...

By DUNKERLEY, Adam There are many antivirus programs available, either in retail stores or over the internet, and most new computers come with a pre- installed trial version which expires after 30 days or so. These programs offer differing levels of protection, loosely falling into three categories - free, antivirus and security suites. The differences between each are significant: Free - these are readily available for download through the internet and normally offer a basic level of...

By Caleb Chapman, Kerrville Daily Times, Texas Jul. 30--Trying to find the latest times for the local showing of "The Dark Knight" may prove troublesome for your PC. Computers around the world are struck by computer viruses every second, but one floating around right now hits close to home. Several local residents have been infected with a virus deceptively named "Antivirus 2008" or "Antivirus 2009," and for some, the problem began when trying to log on to the Rio Entertainment Inc. Web...

By Caleb Chapman, Kerrville Daily Times, Texas Jul. 24--As one local resident learned, software claiming to be a legitimate antivirus program can be just the opposite. Antivirus 2008 makes deceptive claims of system vulnerabilities to entice users to purchase the full version of the software by interfering with normal computer use. "It invades your computer and stops you from doing anything," said Rosemary McMurphy, a victim of the false software. "It keeps telling you that you have all...

By IRIS TAYLOR Gampass, Mumawow and Storm aren't the names of computer games. They are monikers for three sinister and malicious pieces of malware. What's malware? It is software and codes that Internet crooks around the world secretly download onto people's computers or embed in Web pages. The goal: Hitchhike back to people's computers and damage, disrupt or hijack them for criminal use; implant pop-up advertisements; or steal confidential data and money from their bank accounts. Once...

BitDefender researchers have identified a new wave of spam messages that use fake events related to actor Angelina Jolie in order to trick users into downloading and installing Trojan malware onto their computers. This new campaign of spreading malware is mostly carried via spam messages based around an alleged adult video footage with the movie star. In order to watch the movie, users have to download binary file, video-nude-anjelina.avi.exe, which is infected with Trojan.Agent.AGGZ. The...

A paper published this week by researchers with the Georgia Institute of Technology and Google Inc. noted a rise in hacker activity aimed toward controlling infected computers and stealing user identities.In the paper, which was presented at the Internet Society's Network and Distributed System Security Symposium in San Diego, they reported an estimated 68,000 servers currently returning malicious Domain Name System results. These rogue DNS servers are used to re-route computers to spoof...